Q&A with NCAA president Brand on collegiate athletics

Q&A with NCAA president on collegiate athleticsBrand weighs in on 'one-and-done' basketball players

Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, May 14, 2008

NCAA president Myles Brand was in Houston on Tuesday for the opening ceremonies of the Division II Spring Championship Festival, a five-day event that will crown six national champions in men's and women's golf, men's and women's tennis, softball and women's lacrosse.

Brand took time from his schedule for a one-hour question-and-answer session with the Chronicle:

Q: What is the difference between Division II athletes and coaches compared to Division I?

A: Division I has a lot of visibility to it. Division II has really found a unique niche for itself. It's really the division of balance. They balance academics and athletics. The young women and men play very hard and practice very hard. They are engaged in their communities, and they've chosen to be Division II. They want that kind of environment. We're having a festival, sort of a mini-Olympics here.

Q: What do you think about the one-and-done rule that allows athletes to play a year of college basketball before leaving for the NBA?

A: We need to keep in my mind that the NCAA itself has nothing to do with the basketball one-and-done rule. That's all negotiated between the NBA and the players' association. Some may argue there's something wrong with the one-and-done rule, namely just having to be in school one year. I see it in a very different way. If you look at the whole situation, it's actually a help to education. Young men now have to prepare themselves in high school in order to go to college and be eligible to play in college in order to move on to the NBA if they think they are good enough. They are getting a better education in high school. They are more prepared to enter college and become eligible in college. Even for those (13 one-and-done student-athletes who have declared for next month's NBA draft), they've still been exposed in the classroom to higher education, and many of them will come back to complete their degree.

Q: With the elite players, like (Kansas State's) Michael Beasley and (Memphis') Derrick Rose, do you feel it's abusing the system? You call them student-athletes, and they may end with nine hours.

A: I had an opportunity to talk with (NBA) commissioner (David) Stern on a CBS show, and it came up about the NBA and the players' association perhaps in the future talking about a two-year rule instead of a 19- and 20-year-old rule. Commissioner Stern said he would be interested in doing that. That's great from my point of view. I'd rather them stay three or four years. Two is better than one.

Q: Is the Academic Progress Rate (used to assess how schools fare in graduating athletes and, if necessary, punish them for unsatisfactory results) working?

A: Yes, it is. Again, it's not perfect, but not perfect in the sense that we are still sanctioning schools. If it was working perfectly, everybody would have got the message already, and we wouldn't have to sanction one-third of the Division I schools this year. We've seen measurable progress in terms of grade-point average and graduation and people staying in school.

Q: What do you see as the major issues against having a college football playoff in the Football Bowl Subdivi-
sion (formerly Division I-A)?

A: I'm not inside those discussions, but let me give you my best sense of the matter. I think those (school) presidents take very seriously the regular season. They don't want to, in any way, threaten the regular season and turn football into a tournament sport. Basketball is a tourna-
ment sport. They want to put the emphasis on the Saturday rivalries. That's where the fans show the most interest. They are very much concerned about moving toward an NFL-type playoff system.

Q: Only six Division I pro-
grams are making money. How long can this go on?

A: I don't know how long. Presidents' lives are short — 4 1/2 for a public university and 6 1/2 for a private university. So presidents turn over. Even-
tually, you may get another group that thinks differently, so you can't forever go forward with this. I don't know if it will change. I don't think in the near run it will. I don't think there is as much money in (a football playoff) as people think. A lot of the revenues are coming in through ticket sales and TV contracts on the regular season. I think you're going to continue to see good TV contracts in the regular season. If you had a playoff, what would the size of those regular-season contracts be?

Q: How do you subsidize those programs? Is that through tuition fee increases?

A: It's OK to subsidize intercollegiate athletics. If intercollegiate athletics was like the professionals, we would only have one, at most two, sports. ... The reason why in college sports they are having to subsidize is because there are teams over and above those revenue-producing teams. Ohio State has 38 sports; we require 16 sports. Very few (schools) have that few. They are all losing money except perhaps a couple of revenue sports. Why do we do that? Why are we engaged in tennis and golf? Tennis is not going to make any money. But why do we do it? We do it because we believe to our bones that intercollegiate athletics participation provides educa-
tional value to the student-athletes; it improves the quality of their education and their experience in school. If that's true, then the more that parti-
cipate, the better it is. So we want to do it in men's sports, women's sports, Olympic sports, tennis, golf, volleyball and softball, because we think by participating in those sports, student-athletes are better off. If you think college is all about taking tests, going to the library and listening to lectures, you don't understand the first thing about college.

Q: What went into forming a subcommittee to examine ways to improve academic performance in basketball?

A: In the past, the NCAA has passed rules that applied equally to everybody in every sport. The fact of the matter is one shoe doesn't always fit every foot. ... We've tried to look at sports more individually. Particularly football and baseball over the last several years have seen good increments in academic performance. Football, for example, increased its graduation rate by 11 percent over four years. That's an enormous increase, and baseball was even better at 12 percent. Basketball hasn't made much progress. What is special about basketball that we are not seeing the same level of progress? We're seeing some, but it's very modest. What do we need to do in terms of rule changes to motivate change in that environment? One of the things we are considering is mandatory summer school for basketball. Maybe in basketball, instead of a four-year approach, we should have a 3 1/2 -year approach and go every summer. When we look at some schools that already are doing that, they are actually doing better academically with the same populations. So there is some reason to believe that if you require a young man to start, say, six weeks before his freshman year and go every summer or at least the first few summers, we find better academic performance.

Q: Have you been frustrated by the tone of coverage in the O.J. Mayo case? (Mayo, who is entering the NBA after one season at USC, is said to have received cash and other impro-
per gifts from a promoter with whom he has since signed.)

A: I understand the provocative nature of those kinds of cases and the interest of the public in it. I think the part I don't like and find frustrating is that the next step to generalizing is, "Oh, that shows there's something wrong with men's basketball."

Q: Can you update us on the Houston Baptist University lawsuit? (HBU has accused the NCAA of violating its constitution by making the Huskies wait seven years, instead of three, to go from NAIA program to full NCAA Division I member.)

A: We're going to defend our rights in that, particularly our right to set membership criteria. We will defend that strongly. After that, it's an ongoing case, and I can't comment in detail.